


Gestures

by Buttons15



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-04
Updated: 2017-03-14
Packaged: 2018-09-28 05:11:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10073519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Buttons15/pseuds/Buttons15
Summary: Sombra and Angela are terrible for each other and they know it, yet they can't seem to stop themselves.





	1. Chapter 1

Angela Ziegler was not, by all means, an affectionate person, and so Sombra treasured what little gestures of warmth she got when they came to her. They were few and in between, but she had a talent for recognizing those things, for better or worse. She would often wake to find the space next to her empty and already cold, but on few occasions she’d walk to the kitchen and find coffee on the thermos or a pancake on the oven.

She’d eat it even though it was cold.

It was not easy, keeping an affair with the enemy, even though they were stunningly similar in that they both lacked any ideological attachment with their employers. Angela used Overwatch for her own ends just like Sombra used Talon – but the logistics of their little escapes were always a pain to figure out.

It helped that Talon had no say about what Sombra did on her free time. It also helped that Angela was rich enough that she could afford last minute plane tickets to wherever. And so they would meet, usually on a shitty motel in a secluded corner of the world, and they would have sex, and before morning came Angela would usually be gone without a word.

Sombra told herself from day one that she should absolutely not get attached to that cold, indifferent woman, even though she knew it was a lost case. It was still hard on her. She was, god damn it, a romantic – one fond of flamboyant declarations of love, with roses and cheesy songs, on the best telenovela style.

Angela didn’t do feelings. At all.

“ _Hola, mi ángel,_ ” she’d whisper as she opened the door, only to be met with an emotional blank that not even Talon could ever achieve with Widowmaker. And then there would be lips on hers and hands on her skin and Sombra would close her eyes and try to ignore the way her heart leapt and her cheeks burnt and she longed for something more – a connection _. Actual love._

And sometimes, Sombra would close her eyes and just _pretend._

_  
_

* * *

  


Sombra was not a smoker – not ever, not really. She knew Amelie had been one before Talon got to her, and she knew Gabriel still had a certain fondness for the habit, but overall she thought it repulsive – stinky, pointlessly expensive and self-destructive.

She found herself smoking comfort cigarettes when Angela came visit anyway.

“Put that shit out,” the doctor hissed from the bed. In a single smooth movement, Sombra crushed the cig against the wall and then flicked it off the window.

“You aren’t going to tell me to quit it, doc?”

“What for? You’re a grown woman. You can google the consequences.” She stood, picking up her clothes from the floor. “Just don’t fucking do it when I’m around. It’s disgusting.”

_I only do it when you’re around,_ she thought, and the irony of it made her scoff. “Leaving so soon?”

“I hate the taste of ashes on a woman’s lips.”

Sombra watched the blonde go without a word.

Once the door was closed, she lit up another cigarette.

  


* * *

  


Angela Ziegler was a genius. And she was also tremendously manipulative. Sombra knew that – she was smart enough to keep up with the other’s game – but the hacker was a warm person who wore her heart on her sleeve, and the doctor was the exact opposite of that: cold, aloof and bitter.

 She had faith that the other was merely emotionally constipated, because the alternative was too terrifying: that she’d fallen for a person unable to feel. Sombra had hope – needed hope. She watched the other flip through the pages of a book, blonde hair cascading down bare shoulders, and not for the first time she asked herself _why._

_“_ I love you, _”_ she blurted, mostly because she knew it was true.

Angela tore those cold blue eyes from the sentence she’d been reading and held Sombra’s gaze in silence for almost a full minute.

“Of course you do. How could you not?” the other said when she thought surely she’d get no reply. Sombra smirked, humorless.

Sometimes she wondered if hope was all she had.  


  


* * *

  


There were very few moments in which she saw Angela as relaxed as when she was talking about her job. Sombra could understand that – she knew what it felt like to play on her home field. They laid in bed next to one another as the doctor babbled about her latest case, shoulders barely touching.

“I half expected I’d find something that’d force me to stop the procedure, you know? It’s happened so often – I schedule the surgery but the patients get shot down on the pre-op for one reason or the other.”

“Mm-hm.”

Sombra was a cuddler but Angela wasn’t, and so the hacker often had a hard time deciding what to do with her hands in situations like these. She folded them in her lap she listened, and she couldn’t help but pick up on little things – how the other’s eyes glinted and her body language changed completely when the topic was her work, how confident and in control and honestly _happy_ it made her seem.

It was nice, for a change.

“But it turned out okay, both the exams and then the prosthetics itself. It worked, can you believe it? It feels like forever since things went this smoothly.”

“Of course it worked,” she mused. “You’re a good doctor, you make things work.”

“I am,” the blonde agreed, looking out of the window. “Still. It’s… been a while since…” She hesitated and fell silent.

Sensing a shift on the mood, Sombra turned to face her, risking physical contact by brushing their fingers together. “Since?”

Angela sighed. “I don’t know. Since I do something so morally clear, something people can be grateful for without second thoughts. I made that kid’s life better and sometimes… I need this. That’s what I signed up for, right? And I feel so often it gets lost along the way.”

_Wow,_ Sombra blinked, stunned. _She does have a heart._

She spent so long trying to wrangle feelings out of the other, she honestly didn’t know what to do when she got them. She hadn’t expected this – this display of raw emotion. Wasn’t prepared for it. So she did the first thing that came to mind – turned around and pressed her lips Angela’s  as gently as she could muster.

The blonde kissed back in a way Sombra had never experienced before – passionate, eager, so very different from her usual calculated movements.

_Fuck, I love you,_ she thought as the buttons of her shirt came undone. And then she did her best to make her emotions known.

  


* * *

  


She tried training Angela like one would train a dog – a display of emotion could be traded for a kiss. But Sombra didn’t like dogs and she wasn’t dealing with a canid but rather with Angela Ziegler herself, playboy-genius-billionaire, and so of course it backfired and soon _she_ was the tamed animal. She was sitting on her desk, laboring hard on a project, when the other called her from the bed.

“Hey, Sombra.”

“Mmmh?” She supposed it was a little bit unfair that she’d make the blonde catch a plane to see her, only to ignore her because of work. Still, some things couldn’t be helped.

“Do you have a moment to hear about my emotions?”

The hacker froze.

_God fucking damn you and your stupid manipulative ass._

“Yes, of course,” she sighed, defeated, pushing the chair with her feet so she rolled closer to the bed.

“Good girl,” Angela grinned, stroking a thumb against her cheek. Her traitorous skin flushed immediately in response, and she resisted the urge to slap herself on the forehead. The doctor leaned in for a kiss, but Sombra pulled back.

“Nuh-uh,” it was her turn to smirk. “We’re talking feels.”

“Oh, _fine_ ,” the blonde rolled her eyes. “Whatever do you want to talk about this time?”

She was in a particularly good mood, Sombra could tell – she hadn’t stood up and left yet, despite not receiving proper attention, and that said a lot. The hacker decided to push it. “So why medicine?”

Angela’s job was apparently the one thing she could talk about anyway. She didn’t reply at first, and for a moment Sombra almost believed she’d end up without an answer. At that point, she didn’t quite mind anymore – she’d already dropped what she’d been doing anyway so she might as well go all out and finish her night having sex.

But then Angela spoke and it was so unusually quiet and vulnerable and sincere it was hard to believe it was the same person.

“Because I’m bad with people,” the other whispered, not making eye contact. “Have always been.”

“I, uh,” she blinked. “Am not sure I follow your line of thought.”

“I could just as easily have gone into maths. Physics. _Computers_ ,” at that she half smiled, sly. “Think you could have handled the competition?”

“You got nothing on me,” she arched an eyebrow, playful, though frankly the prospect was terrifying.

“I could have gone into those areas and I would have been fine. Great even. I’m good with numbers and with logics.”

“But not with people,” Sombra pressed.

“Not with people,” she agreed. “And I knew if I didn’t force myself to work on that then I just never would. I suppose…” she looked away. “I had… hopes. That maybe I’d learn it – not to be the best, not really, I’m realistic with my abilities, but maybe I’d learn enough that I’d…not have to be alone.” Angela paused, scoffed. “Joke’s on me, because I ended up bitter and lonely anyway. Should’ve gone into the fucking exact sciences.”

“I –” the hacker reached out, hesitated, then took the other’s hand between hers. Angela arched an eyebrow, ever so cynical, and Sombra felt whatever cheesy but comforting words she was going to say die before they reached her lips.

“I – uh.” She cleared her throat and went for sincerity instead. “Wish you’d give the people reaching out to you a chance. And by people I mean _me._ ”

The doctor didn’t reply.

“And... you do have people who care for you and love you. I can name at least one.”

“Yourself?”

“You’re a genius!” she teased. “So, uh, I suppose it wasn’t a total disaster.”

Angela turned to her, skeptical. “And do you like me because of my stunning people skills, Sombra?” she snapped.

“Well, not _quite,_ but –”

“Then my point still stands.”

“God, you’re so difficult,” she muttered, closing the distance between them.

“Yes, I am, that’s sort of the entire issue at hand –”

Sombra silenced her with a kiss.

  


* * *

  


“I think we should end this.”

They were lying in bed together after yet another intense night. They never had any sort of sexual afterglow, not really – if anything, Sombra’s after-intercourse moments were filled with anxiety and a sense of not quite knowing what to do with herself. And so she had absolutely no hint about what was to come, no way she could have expected it.

“You can’t break up with me, silly,” she teased. “We’re not official, remember? It doesn’t make any sense to break up something that isn’t there.”

“I’m serious. We’re done.”

Sombra sat up straight, blinking. “Wait, what? Out of the blue, just like that? Why?”

Angela didn’t make eye contact. “I don’t think I’m good for you, Sombra.”

_What the hell_

“Where’s this even coming from?” She shook her head. “ _Excuse me_ , I’m a grown ass woman, I’ll be the judge of what’s good for me or not.”

“Well maybe _you_ are not good for _me_ ,” she hissed.

Sombra flinched, gritting her teeth. She felt unexplainable tears well up on her eyes and forced them back. “Oh, so that’s it? You fuck me for a year and a half and suddenly decide the sex is just not that good?”

“That’s not –”

“Then what?! What is it, Angela? What else am I to you but a fuck buddy? _What else do you want from me?!_ ”

Silence. The other’s impassive, emotionless face only made it worse. “But you’re right,” she continued. “It wouldn’t look nice for Overwatch’s golden girl to be seen with a terrorist, and your goddamn career is the only thing that you’re hot for anyway.”

It was the blonde’s turn to wince – and still she didn’t answer.

“Just get out,” Sombra said after a while. “Get out of my face. Don’t call. You’re right, Angela. You’re not good for me at all.”

  


* * *

  


They didn’t talk for days, and then for weeks, and then for months. She waited for it to stop hurting but it never did. If it was up to Sombra, they’d never share the same space again, but she knew it was bound to happen eventually. She was still not ready when it did.

They met on the battlefield, gunshots exploding in the distance. Sombra had just finished collecting some important data and was on her way out when she turned the corner and bumped right into Angela, pistol in hands.

The hacker wished she could think of something snarky to say, but truth was that when their eyes met, the two just straight up froze. Angela snapped out of it first, always so quick to recompose, and Sombra watched with horror as the doctor’s eyes drifted down to her weapon.

“Just shoot me dead,” she blurted on impulse. “It’s been hell without you anyway.”

She was being dramatic, of course, telenovela style, but her life had suddenly turned into a shitty B-movie story and she always enjoyed a good soap opera anyway.

Angela dropped her weapon, and she actually had a glimpse of hope that they would hug and make up then and there. Instead, the blonde took a step back. And then someone else burst through the door – Amari, who came in gun in hand, pointing it straight to Sombra’s head.

_This is how I die._

But Amari didn’t shoot. Rather, she stared at them for a moment, a look of utter comprehension crossing her face, and then she wordlessly grabbed Angela by the arm and dragged her away, literally rocketing out of the window.

_She’s smarter than I gave her credit for._ Reminding herself about how things between the Egyptian and the doctor had ended and Amari now had a healthy relationship with someone else, she added, _Smarter than me even._

That night, when the phone rung, Sombra hesitated, and when Angela’s voice came from it, she hung up in a whim. A couple seconds later it was ringing again, and Sombra let it go to voicemail. She honestly didn’t think there would be a message, but the doctor’s heavily accent Spanish filled the room:

_“Pendeja hija de la gran puta coge el pinche teléfono –”_

Sombra burst out laughing.

And then she picked up the call.

  


* * *

  


Sometimes Talon and Overwatch agendas would send the two to the same place, and on these logistically fortunate occasions, she and Angela got to spend more than a few hours together. It was horrible. It was great. It was stressful. Sombra wouldn’t trade those opportunities for the world.

They’d been tolerating one another for three days in a row and Sombra was in the middle of pulling an all-nighter when Angela approached from the kitchen and rested a mug of coffee on her desk. It took the hacker a couple seconds to realize it was meant for her.

“Oh,” she babbled, blinking. “ _Muchas gracias, ángel._ ”

“ _De nada,_ ” the other replied, but didn’t walk away. Sombra didn’t worry about the doctor reading over her shoulder – the information on the screen would be completely indecipherable without the input she got from the Interface. Still, Angela lingered, and the Mexican had serious issues with working while people _looked_ at her.

It was disconcerting, and Sombra was willing to bet that the blonde knew precisely how uncomfortable it made her. She tried to keep working anyway but halted after a couple minutes, taking a sip of her drink. It made her feel warm on the inside, for reasons she suspected went a little beyond the liquid’s temperature.

She was, admittedly, a sucker for simple gestures of affection.

And then Angela placed her hands on the hacker’s shoulders and rubbed slow circles on her back, undoing the knots in the muscles, and Sombra couldn’t hold back a whimper of relief as her body relaxed.

“What’s gotten into you today?” she mumbled, closing her eyes and wincing when the other rubbed a particularly sore spot.           

“What do you mean?”

“Well…” she trailed off. “The coffee, the backrub… that’s not very _you_ , if you catch my meaning.” She paused, then added, “Not that I’m complaining. I’m definitely not complaining.”

She felt Angela’s lips brush the tip of her ear and held her breath. “I’m taking care of you,” the blonde whispered, making a shiver run through her spine.

“This is not fair,” she complained, leaning back against the chair, struggling to keep her breath steady as the doctor’s hands carried on with their work.

“Oh?”

Sombra turned back to face her. “You’ve got me wrapped around your finger and I don’t even know if you actually _like_ me.”

Silence. She sighed – she hadn’t really expected an answer. Angela’s fingers were working on her shoulder blades and _god, it felt good._

“It’s fine though,” the hacker added, slightly bitter. “The sex is _amazing_ and that’s what counts. Girl, do you know how to make use of all that knowledge in anatomy.”

The blonde’s movements halted, and Sombra couldn’t resist a grin.

_Jackpot._

“Is that why you like me?” Angela said in a flat tone. “Nice… sex?”

_“Great_ sex, give yourself credit, _”_ she corrected.

“Good.”

“Good?” she tilted her head.

“Good,” the doctor repeated, resuming the backrub. “That’s a good answer. A valid reason.”

For a long while, Sombra said nothing. She let the other finish the massage. By the time she was done, the computer monitor had gone dark with inactivity. The hacker pushed the mouse absently and the screen blinked back to life. She hesitated, a turmoil of feelings rising in her chest. One look at her work and she knew she was in no state to finish it properly.

“It’s why I liked you,” she admitted, barely above a murmur. “It’s not why I love you.”

“Why do you, then?” her very tone felt like a challenge.

“There’s some charm to your bitter, cynical ass,” she snapped with no real bite. “I don’t know. I like you for you, I suppose.”

“What kind of shitty answer is that?”

“One that is no answer at all, _ángel._ ” She stood and walked over to the bed, plopping down without a drop of grace.

“I can tell that,” Angela rolled over on top of her and _booped her in the nose_. “Don’t you think I deserve a true answer? Haven’t I been a good girl?”

“Unfair,” her heart hammered on her chest so hard it was almost painful. She swallowed dry.  “You play dirty.”

“I play to win,” she mocked, pressing her teeth against Sombra’s neck. She always _did_ like leaving a mark, and the hacker couldn’t help but wonder how many girls had left Angela’s room with a bruise on their skins and warmth on their hearts.

_God, I’m such an idiot._

“I – I don’t know.” She was finding it gradually harder to think. “I guess I’m just a romantic at heart – I always get attached.”

“That’s –”

“Stupid, I know.”

Angela pulled back and held her gaze. “I was going to say _sweet_ , but yes, also stupid.”

“Sweet and stupid,” she repeated, her hands already out of control on the other’s clothes. “Sounds like me.”

“Mhm.” The blonde pressed their lips together for a moment, then broke the kiss. “I like it.”

Sombra swore she felt her heart stop. “Can you say that again?”

“No.”

“ _Please_ ,” she begged. It was pathetic, but she was past caring. “Haven’t I been a good girl?”

Angela smiled, though it didn’t reach her eyes. It never did.

_An idiot,_ her brain reminded her.

The doctor leaned in again, caught Sombra’s earlobe between her teeth and gave it a light tug. She shivered, all logic fleeing her head. And then she heard the other’s voice, barely above a whisper:

_“Te quiero.”_


	2. Chapter 2

Angela was sitting on the couch, eyes glued to the screen, when she felt a blanket being thrown over her shoulders. A moment later, Sombra plopped down next to her, kicking off her shoes. She snuggled into the cover, acknowledging the gesture with a nod. She deduced, not instinctively but logically, that by her position and her body language the other would probably like to _cuddle_ , but the idea of casual physical contact made her anxious.

The doctor took a long, deep breath and scooted closer, letting their shoulders bump, feeling human warmth gradually spread over her skin. Sombra looked at her as if she’d just sprouted a third eye, which absolutely did _not_ help _,_ but didn’t question it, which was a good thing. The blonde gave herself a while to get used to the touch, trying to dissipate the tension by focusing on the ongoing episode of ‘ _Naked and Afraid’._

Sombra cleared her throat and stared at the glass on her hands. “I have some lemonade,” she stated.

“So you do,” Angela agreed.

“Would you like some?”

She turned to stare at the hacker, who had extended her the glass. The gesture was, much like everything else Sombra did, awkward and sweet.  She leaned in and took a sip, then muttered her thanks.

Angela _hated_ lemonade. The taste was fine but the texture and the viscosity really bothered her.

Sombra tentatively put an arm around her shoulder and she stiffened, then told herself to quit it. She relaxed her back muscles, reciting them one by one as she did so: _latissimus dorsi, erector spinae, levator scapulae, rhomboid major, rhomboid minor…_

 She had something important to say but she was having trouble getting it out, and the entire situation was overall stressful. Knowing herself, she’d overthink it until she ran out of patience, and then she’d just blurt it out.

_Splenius capitis,_ she exhaled. _Quadratus lumborum, splenius cervicis, serratus posterior superior, triceps brachii…_

The show came to an end, and Sombra casually flicked her fingers, shuffling through all six hundred available and probably pirated television channels. The other stopped on a channel and hesitated, hand froze in the air as she appraised the content.

“I like _Ancient Aliens,_ ” Angela offered, and the Mexican grinned, leaning back against the couch to watch.

_Transversospinales, obliquus capitis superior and supraspinatus._

 The two had very similar taste in trashy media. She let her torso lean slightly against the woman’s shoulder. She’d grown used to the hacker’s presence. It was, she would dare say, actually _nice._

“Hey, Sombra?”

The other took a sip of her drink. “Mmmh?”

“Do you ever think about us… going official?”

Sombra choked on her drink and burst out in a fit of coughing. Angela felt the ghost of a smirk reach her lips.

“I mean, you’re right when you say I can’t break up with you if we don’t actually have a _thing._ I need to remedy that.”

The alternating looks of alarm and confusion on her lover’s face amused her to no end. “I can’t decide whether you’re dumping me or you want to go steady.”

“Which one do you think?”

“Uh.” Sombra blinked. “They’re…equally likely?”

The blonde rolled her eyes. “Be my girlfriend.”

It wasn’t a question, but rather a demand. Sombra started coughing again, and Angela snatched the glass from her hands and put it away with a glare, breaking the contact between them when she sat up straight.

“Why?”

“You don’t want to?” she dodged the question, turning the conversation away from her.

“No! I mean yes!” the hacker babbled. “I’d love to. I’m just surprised, that’s all.”

“Good.” She plopped back down, this time tucking her head under Sombra’s chin. _Human warmth,_ she thought, now not only on her shoulder but all over her back. She could almost see the gears turning on the hacker’s head, her expression nothing short of panicky.

Angela found the woman’s transparence comforting.

“But _why?_ ”

She sighed. “Good sex. I’m really into that thing you do with the electric currents.”

“I – um,” she was flushing. “Thanks, I guess.”

She said nothing, turning her attention back to the show and leaving Sombra to puzzle out the situation on her own. Every now and then she’d take a peek back at her now-girlfriend, and every time she’d look deep into those artificially violet irises and see the human rendition of the Windows Blue Screen of Death.

“Can I kiss you?” the hacker asked after almost a full hour.

“ _Por supuesto,_ ” she muttered, turning back to receive a long, drawn out kiss. “Sombra?” she said when they broke apart.

“ _Sí, ángel?_ ”

“Do you think the pyramids were built by aliens?”

 

* * *

 

 

“You’re looking kinda bummed,” Sombra spoke out of the blue. “You’re…quieter than usual.”

“I am?” Angela tilted her head.

“Yeah. You haven’t even bitched about the TV being too loud yet.” the hacker hesitated for a moment, then extended her hand and brushed her fingers against the doctor’s cheek. It only lasted for a few seconds, but the ghost of the touch lingered. “Is something up?”

She closed her eyes but didn’t answer, combing through her day to see if she could spot anything that might have upset her. It was almost half an hour later when she sighed and spoke.

“You read me well.” she praised, because at some point in their two-year relationship Sombra had explained that hearing these things was important to her.

She offered no further explanation.

“Work?” Sombra pressed. Her persistence was admirable, though often futile.

“You should know better.”

Work was the one thing which, despite how bad it could go, brought Angela very little distress if any. She was an intelligent woman and she knew it; her confidence on her own skills reached its peak when she practiced her craft, and on a professional setting, she could handle whatever the world threw at her.

 In the office, she was not an anxious mess. She followed protocols on dealing with illness and she followed protocols on interacting with people and everything was fine and under control. Her social life on the other hand was usually the source of all her troubles.

“Talk to me,” the hacker insisted. “Talking helps.”

“I am well aware of the therapeutic value of dialogue,” she snapped.

“Maybe _I_ can help.”

“You can,” she agreed. “In bed.”

“No, really,” Sombra persevered. “I’m more than a pretty face, you know. I bet I could ease off a lot of your load if only you’d actually let me into your life.”

“You see how I might object to that, considering the status quo.”

Even as she said it, she brushed her thumb against the silver band she wore around her left ring finger. From where she was from people didn’t get rings for _dating_ , but the Mexican had started to wear a ‘ring of promise’, whatever that meant, and Angela was honest to god trying to make the relationship work, so she’d catered and inquired where to get a matching one.

As it turned out, Sombra had been keeping the pair on her drawer, she’d just never gotten around to asking the doctor to wear it. Her request made the hacker very happy, so Angela gave herself a mental congratulatory star for it.

The damn ring always brought her a ball of emotions that were so tangled and confused that she didn’t even dare to pick apart or try to name. It was also a constant reminder that she was fraternizing with the enemy. She found the concept that she’d end up on a star-crossed romance annoying and ridiculous.

“And just how many times have I surprised you?” Sombra grinned.

She sighed. “It’s the UN.”

“Cracking down on Overwatch again?”

“I wouldn’t mind if they were, that’d be nothing new.” she shrugged. “But they want little Efi to turn off her omnic, based on the Petras act’s prohibition of vigilantes, and that’s honestly ridiculous. The robot is pretty much a traffic guard, Sombra.” She paused. “Granted, it _is_ equipped with a military grade machine gun, but I don’t think that’s ever been used.”

_“Pendejos hacendo pendejadas,”_ the other muttered. “I’ll fix it.”

Angela arched an eyebrow. “How so?”

“I can’t just tell you the secrets of my craft, would you tell me the secrets of yours?”

“It’s _literally_ all on pubmed,” she countered.

“Whatever,” Sombra stood. “I’ll be right back.”

She watched the other go, stretching her legs on the newly freed space on the couch. Grabbing the remote, she lowered the TV sound, then shifted through the channels until she stopped on an old episode of _‘Untold Stories of the ER’._

She really liked that one. Neither the doctors in the show nor Angela could tell what was going on with the patients, and she had fun guessing.

“Keep her under observation and ask for an upper digestive tract MRI,” she muttered.

The physician in the TV ordered the exam. Angela smiled.

The program was almost over when Sombra rejoined her. She folded her legs to allow the other to sit, then extended them on top of the hacker’s lap.

“She works as a circus sword swallower and she has uncontrollable hiccups,” Angela provided so that the other could follow. They watched the end of the episode together – she got three out of the four diagnosis right, which was an impressive ratio for a selection of odd cases. When they were done, Sombra took the remote from her hands and started swapping channels.

It was strange that she’d used the remote at all, rather than her complex network of neural implants, but Angela didn’t comment on it. When the hacker stopped on the news, the blonde knew for sure something was up, because Sombra never watched that – she had no need to, what with the constantly up to date feed delivered directly to her brain.

Still, she didn’t question it, choosing to wait and see instead. It didn’t take her long.

A huge, red and in all caps ‘breaking news’ sign suddenly took over the screen, and a new reporter started talking. “ _A new_ _anonymous leak just went viral in the web, showing photographic evidence of a meeting between the United Nations president and representatives of the Omnium. Documents point that the cause of the encounter was the negotiation of an illegal weapons deal –_ ”

“Sombra.” She pulled her legs back to her and sat up straight. “Did you just really?”

The hacker was grinning. “I’m pretty sure they’ll have a lot more to worry about than the kid’s little robot.”

_“… may indicate the involvement of the entire higher circle of representatives and go as far as military officers –”_

“Is that even legit information?”

“Does it matter?”

The notion that it didn’t was frankly a little scary, and she suddenly got a new appreciation for the fact that she was fraternizing with this enemy in particular.

_“And to add insult to injury, the hacker has also leaked what seems to be proof of the president’s extra conjugal affair –”_

_Seriously?_

Sombra was glowing. They were much alike in that they were very confident about their jobs, but Angela had never before given much thought to the sheer reputation-destroying potential the other held. She supposed, now facing it, that the hacker had perhaps as much power over life as she did, with half the hesitation to use it.

She took a moment to wrap her head around that idea.

“I like that in you.”

“Hacking skills?”

Angela considered her words. “The way you just… take what you want, knowing that you can.”

She waited in silence for a reply when Sombra stared at empty space. And then the other turned to her and held her gaze, firm and intense.

“Like the way I claimed you as mine?”

The sentence was so cheesy yet unexpectedly domineering, Angela realized she was suddenly blushing despite herself.  She knew there was no chance in the world that Sombra wouldn’t notice it either, so she reacted on impulse, closing the distance between them and pressing their lips together.

She felt the hacker smile against her skin. “Careful,” the other warned, hands running through her blonde locks. “I might start thinking you get off on my power trips.”

Angela closed her eyes, savoring the rare yet thrilling sensation of letting someone else take control.

“Maybe I do.”

 

* * *

 

 

Angela stared at the locked out terminal, tapping her fingers against the keyboard. Outside, war went on, her teammates struggling against consecutive waves of omnics. The awakened God program had evil intent, as they most did, and she couldn’t help but wonder why the hell they all had to be bent on world destruction rather than say, manufacturing pretty shoes.

She had Sombra’s contact on her official communicator this time; when machines threatened to contaminate vital resources with nukes, Overwatch wouldn’t hesitate in hiring the best, even if they so happened to be the enemy. Kneeling by the computer and plugging her datapad in, she opened the voice channel on her radio.

“Sombra online,” the other’s voice chirped.

“Mercy on position,” she replied. “I’m getting into the system now.”

“Efi ready,” the girl chirped in. She wasn’t actually anywhere near the fight, but rather following their work through Orisa, who could also provide much needed muscle in case something went wrong.

Angela had _some_ base knowledge of informatics, and Sombra had spent the last few days coaching her for this mission in particular. She had always been a fast learner anyway. Their plan had been easy to come up with, but hard to execute: while the AI focused its attention on the well-known high profile hacker, the doctor would be the one actually sabotaging it from inside.

“I’m ready, _hermosa._ I’ll start DDoSing as a distraction.”

Sombra had never gone into detail about her part of the plan, and the blonde couldn’t help but scowl when she heard that. A DDoS was to computers what a wrecking ball was to concrete: loud, brute and completely graceless.

“Seriously _?_ A DDoS? That’s a middle school trick.”

“Hey, nothing works better for this, eh? If ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

She rolled her eyes and began her work. Even in the innermost corner of the God AI’s servers, security was tight and there was no way she would be able to deliver a custom script without raising alarm flags, and that was why she had to input the code she wanted manually, so that the program could be created and read as an _inside_ package rather than an outside one.

First things first, she set up the resources she’d need.

**OMN_GAI_REQUEST**  
require  'msf/core'  
include Msf::Exploit::Remote::Tcp  
include Msf::Auxiliary::Scanner  
include Msf::Auxiliary::Report  


“Module initialized,” she reported. “I’m typing in the handshakes now.”

“ _Perfecto como tú, mi guapa._ ”

She did not dignify that with an answer, though she did feel her cheeks heat in the slightest.

“Starting transmission of cypher suites,” Efi announced. Turning to Orisa, she watched letters pass on the omnic’s visor, which she promptly wrote down.

CIPHER_SUITES = [  
0xc014, # TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA  
0xc00a, # TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA  
0xc022, # TLS_SRP_SHA_DSS_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA  
0xc021, # TLS_SRP_SHA_RSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA  


The cyphers, together, formed what was called the ‘handshake’ – computers checked these codes over to make sure both ends spoke the same language, so to say. How Sombra had acquired those was beyond her and she did not care. All that was left for her to do was the mechanical task of typing them down so that the first security test might be breached.

There were tens of them, and it was going to take a while. She typed as fast as she could, completely focused on the task. Somewhere on the back of her mind she kept track of the background noises of guns and metal grinding against metal, though she left most of that to Orisa.

“This is ridiculous,” Angela bitched, because complaining was, as far as she knew, still free. “I’m typing in eight hundred lines of code while your job is to literally run a _LOIC_.”

She had a right to be angry. While she had a long list of tasks to go through, all Sombra had to do was boot up a program and click ‘start’.

Sombra laughed. “Now, to be fair, I’m running thousands of LOICs –”

“A trained monkey could do it,” she snapped, her fingers aching from typing. “Defining the package now.”

The package was a key point in what she was trying to do. Basically, she would send a small file to the other end of the server, together with a fake credential which would define it as actually being huge. Then, she would ask the server to send the file back. Since she’d lied about the data size, she’d receive a much larger package in return, one which hopefully had the keys she needed to hop into the system.

Hackers liked to call it ‘a heartbleed’ _,_ which she found lovely.

def heartbeat_request(length)  
payload = "\x01" # Heartbeat Message Type: Request (1)  
payload  << [length].pack('n') # Payload Length: 65535  
ssl_record(HEARTBEAT_RECORD_TYPE, payload)  
end  


“Isn’t this a half-century old trick anyway?” she muttered. “How come it even works?”

“Every single manmade AI is filled with these, _angél._ We did it on purpose when building them. We left ourselves backdoors for situations precisely like this one.”

“Aren’t they smart enough to patch them?” Angela typed in the method to send the spoofing request and store the information it returned.

“It’s not so simple. This kind of thing is usually tangled with vital data, making it almost impossible to erase, or thrown in between so much trash that the AI often doesn’t even know it’s there. Like, say, junk DNA.”

“I see your point, yeah.” She cracked her knuckles.

“Besides,” Sombra added. “Some of them are just eccentrics. I met an omnic once who had an entire library of documents he would only read in Adobe Acrobat. Something about getting an ‘old book smell’ when he did it.”

The concept was too bizarre to think about at that moment, but Angela stored the information for further reflection. “Starting the socket now.”

The socket was the actual connection between two computers, and once it was established, that was when things would proceed: her fake package would go in, a bunch of cheesy information would come out.

“Holding my breath, _mi bella._ ”

psql_sslrequest = [8].pack('N')  
psql_sslrequest << [1234, 5679].pack('n*')  
sock.put(psql_sslrequest)  
res = get_data  
unless res && res =~ /S/  
return nil  
end  


Angela hit enter and watched for a tense moment as the computer processed her script. 

_Bleed, motherfucker._

A split second later, she cracked a grin. Her datapad beeped and listed a series of seemingly meaningless words and numbers started rolling on the screen. With a few clicks, she had the information sent over to Sombra, who laughed.

“Like a stuck pig, yea? Sending you the cryptography keys now.”

She received them and transmitted them to the computer. The screen blinked black, and then a low polygon animation of a key turning a lock popped up. Once that was gone, she ran a command prompt and began the process of privilege escalation – tricking the computer into thinking she was an administrator user rather than a guest. This was a faster process, and soon enough she was hitting the enter key.

When the computer replied with an error message, Angela merely sighed and tapped her communicator. “Sombra, that didn’t work. Says ‘Override failed: insufficient access permissions’, what do I do?”

“ _Pero que mierda?_ It was working yesterday, what the fuck. Try increasing the size of the array.”

She did not know what that meant, so she just did as she was told. “Yep, that worked.”

“…yeah. I think I’ll just lie down in a puddle of my own tears for a moment.”

“Not so fast,” Angela cut her short. “The first step worked but I still can’t get through. It says –”

Before she could finish, a loud explosion rung out from the other side of the line. She barely had time to think and Sombra was already cursing, the sound of bullets being fired loud enough that she winced. Angela disconnected from the channel. There was nothing she could do to help the hacker, and her sticking around would only be an unnecessary distraction.

She focused, instead, on the problem at hand.

_I have no fucking idea how to fix this._

“Any ideas, Efi?”

Almost a full minute later, the girl’s voice crackled on the communicator. “I’m – a little held up here, trying to stall back their omnics. They’re a similar to the OR-15s but not enough that – aghh. Just beware, Doctor Ziegler. They’ll be on you in ten minutes tops, and you and Orisa will need to run.”

_It just gets better and better._

“Thanks,” she replied, impassive. “I’ll see what I can do.”

She flipped the comm channel and tried Sombra again, but it was dead. Angela felt a twinge of concern squeeze at her chest, but pushed it aside and closed her eyes, focusing on what she had to do. She was more than used to working under pressure, and experience had taught her that even if her minutes were counted, taking the time to think was always worth it.

She tried increasing the size of the array again, and when that didn’t work out, she simply did not know enough about hacking to do anything else. Angela disconnected the datapad from the server and briefly considered how effective would it be to merely smash the whole thing with a hammer. She reconnected the pad and watched the stupid key animation play.

And then the pieces fell into place in her brain, and she did it again and again, confirming her hypothesis with a right click.  Angela flicked her communicator back into channel and tried for Sombra again. It took her three tries for the other to finally pick it up.

“Sombra –” she began.

“ _Hijo de puta – Ángel_ , you have to get out of there. They’ll be coming for you, they’re already overrunning me –”

“Sombra –” the blonde tried again.

“Forget the privilege escalation, that won’t work, the _pendejo_ is on us and patching it up as we speak –”

“Sombra! _Escúchame, carajo!_ ” she hissed, finally getting the other to shut up. “Listen, the cryptography keys, whenever I enter them this animation pops up –”

“Running out of time here, _ángel,_ ” the other yelled over the sound of gunshots.

“It’s in flash!” Angela shouted to make herself heard. “The AI has fucking S _hockwave Flash_ installed and I think you might be able to do something with that.”

There was a moment of silence, and then she heard Sombra laugh. She couldn’t see the woman’s face, but she could picture the mixture of hysteria and relief it would show.

Shockwave Flash was well known for having a Swiss cheese’s worth of security holes, particularly in a version as old as that one – and that was the very reason its use had been discontinued decades before.

“Yes, yes I can, I’ll send the injection to your datapad and all you have to do is to plug it in and –” Her voice was lost in the middle of loud crashing. “- _mierda._ Give me three minutes.”

The doctor turned to Orisa. “How long do we have?”

“About three and a half minutes,” the omnic answered.

Angela grinned. She hadn’t chosen her profession for no reason – she had always been a big fan of working under pressure anyway.

 

* * *

 

 

Between tending to the wounded and victory celebrations, it took Angela two full days to escape the clutches of post-mission Overwatch. When she finally got her day off, she headed into the depths of Sydney night, passing under neon lights and turning at shady corners.

As a doctor, she made a habit out of being fashionably late. It didn’t really happen on purpose – surgeries got unexpectedly complicated, patients needed more time than it was originally thought, she got tangled in paperwork. But when she went out to see Sombra, she didn’t go as a physician but rather as a Swiss woman.

And as a Swiss woman, Angela was perfectly on time.

She didn’t expect Sombra to be already on the room, because as far as she’d gathered, the hacker considered a thirty minute delay ‘within the margin of error of punctuality’. It took Angela a while to understand that whenever Sombra said ‘I’ll be fifteen minutes late,’ she actually meant fifteen minutes _past_ the usual half an hour.

Yet on that day, it was not the case. As soon as she stepped foot into the hotel bedroom, she was pushed against a wall, the other’s lips pressed against hers. She was a good five centimeters taller and she imagined the sight must have been curious at least, the way she had to lower her head to kiss back, the way she’d let her hair loose and it brushed against the hacker’s cheeks, the way she closed her eyes and let herself be led to the bed.

They didn’t immediately proceed to undressing one another, however. Instead, Sombra leaned closer, and Angela tucked the other’s head under her chin, gently rubbing her palm over the woman’s shoulder.

“I didn’t think we’d make it,” Sombra confessed. The blonde didn’t say anything, choosing to give her lover all the time she needed to vent. “I’m not used to losing hope, I never do, but –” she hesitated. “I’m also used to working alone. I – I didn’t know what to do, having a partner, and I think the novelty of it threw me off.”

“How do you feel about the entire experience?”

Sombra chuckled. “You’re… surprisingly easy to work with, even though you’re so shit at dealing with people.”

She grinned despite herself. “ _Excuse me_. Surgeons always work in teams, _schatz._ ”

The hacker sat up abruptly. “What did you just call me?”

_Oh. Oh, fuck._

“Nothing. I said _scheiße._ That’s German for ‘shit’.” She broke eye contact.

“That word is not even remotely like the first,” Sombra protested. “I have a computer plugged into my brain, Ziegler, I can honestly just look it up –”

“ _Te amo._ ”

The hacker stopped mid-sentence, mouth hanging open. Angela felt her cheeks warm and she forced herself to breathe. When she swallowed, it felt as if she had something stuck on her throat. They were true words, but saying them made her want to break down and cry, for reasons she couldn’t quite explain.

“Can you say that again?”

“I –” she cleared her throat. “ _Te amo._ ”

“I – you do realize that in Spanish this means –”

“I am quite aware,” she said, relieved by the opportunity to be snappy. “Please do not question my language proficiency.”

Her confidence only lasted for a second. She felt uncomfortable – exposed and bare, painfully aware of the drumming of her heartbeat.

“ – a lot. This means a lot to me.” Sombra finished.

_Be cocky,_ she told herself. _You are at your most charming when you are cocky._

“That’s because _you_ mean a lot to me.” she blurted, then resisted the urge to facepalm. Angela suddenly found herself craving a drink.

“Wow. I just never thought – wow.”

They made eye contact again, but only briefly, both unusually shy.

“ _Verdammt,_ Sombra, just shut up and fuck me.”

It was simpler that way.

 

* * *

 

 

Angela never thought they’d make it. When they first hit it off on a shady motel, she couldn’t have imagined how far her affair would go. One omnic crisis and six years later, there they were, sharing a perfectly domestic moment. She watched Sombra move around the kitchen, preparing breakfast.

There was no coffee on the thermos, because they couldn’t agree on it. She liked it black and sugary, the perfect combo of caffeine and glucose for a tired brain. Sombra liked hers weak and as bitter as Reyes when Morrison got a promotion. The hacker prepared her a pancake while making herself some scrambled eggs.

They couldn’t agree on what to eat, either. Angela liked sweet foods in the morning. Sombra preferred a more American eggs and bacon or, when she could put her hands in some, Mexican tacos. Their musical tastes, too, were notably different, and the sole thing they had in common was a mutual passion for scientifically questionable documentaries.

Yawning, she picked up her tablet from where she’d let it the previous night and, sitting on the kitchen bench, resumed her nightly reading.

_“Oxytocin during the initial stages of romantic attachment: Relations to couples’ interactive reciprocity.”_

She wished they had enough data to tell exactly how much oxytocin could prove that one person was attached to another. Her life would be considerably easier then. Shaking her head in defeat, Angela watched at the corner of her vision as Sombra took two mugs, filled them halfway with coffee, and then added sugar in one and water on the other.

“ _Danke schon._ ”

“ _De nada, princesa._ ”

She took a sip of her drink. It was as she liked it, and so were the pancakes. The extra set of keys on her pocket seemed to suddenly pick up weight, so she turned her attention back to the tablet for a distraction. For a while, she humored herself with ballistics, flinging robot birds at digital pigs.

Sombra finished her own meal and took both plates to the sink. Wearing slacks, one of Angela’s hoodies and no shoes, the hacker couldn’t seem more comfortable.

_Why does everything between us has to be so difficult? She has a fucking toothbrush in your place, Angela,_ she told herself, switching the screen back off. _Just get this over with already._

“Sombra? I want you to have this,” she fished the keys out of her pocket.

“Wha – oh.” The other blinked, shaking water droplets from her fingers. “The… keys to the place? I don’t need them, you know. Your door is low tier security.”

“I want you to have them,” she repeated. “You shouldn’t need to go out of the way to get into a place that… I also want to be yours.”

“Be…mine?”

She sighed. “Move in with me, Sombra.”

“Oh.” The hacker stumbled and dropped down on the couch. “Oh, shit. I – I don’t know, Angela. I live in Mexico.”

“Yes, you live in Mexico, I live in Zurich and _we date._ That’s my point exactly.” The blonde was not discouraged in the least. She’d been expecting some resistance. “You’re a security consultant and part time cybercriminal. You can do that from anywhere, and actually, I’m pretty sure it’s easier to get optic fiber here.”

“Yeah, you’re right, but…”

“I could move to Dorado myself,” she proposed, because as far as jobs went, she was pretty sure she wouldn’t go unemployed even on the moon. “But I have a feeling you wouldn’t like that.”

“I – I wouldn’t, I think.  Not that I don’t like you!” the hacker cleared her throat. “God knows I do, but… I’m not sure I’d be comfortable having you there. Dorado is… my place.” She paused to think. “I thought Zurich was yours.”

“I haven’t had a place like that in a long time, Sombra,” she smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “I think it’s no longer a location to me, but rather a state of mind.” She tossed the keys on top of the center table. “You don’t have to stop going there. You know I wouldn’t argue.”

“I’ll… give it thought. A lot of thought.”

“Good. Let me know when you’ve decided.”

She wasn’t surprised, when she got back from work that day, to find the house empty and Sombra missing without a trace – her toothbrush, her clothes, everything had vanished. She opened the fridge and grabbed the carton of milk, noticing even the tortillas were gone.

Yet so were the extra set of keys.

Angela rolled her eyes, knowing that the other would come around eventually. It took time, one month, then two, then three. By the fourth she was already really sick of it, and so on a lonely Friday night, she decided to try something drastic: she installed Tinder. And then she turned on ‘ _matches around the world_ ’ and started liking Los Muertos gang members.

Sombra was at her doorstep an hour later. “I thought you had standards!!”

“Oh, hello Sombra.” She smiled, a mean light twinkling in her eyes. “Long time no see.”

“Carlos? You liked _Carlos?_ ” the other made her way in. “Do you know how much of a headache that asshole gave me?”

“What can I say, I have a thing for Mexican gangsters,” she shrugged. “Been here all by myself for so long, a girl starts to get lonely.”

“You were liking men in another continent!”

“I’m rich, I can get a plane.” She was downright grinning now. “What do you care anyway? Why were you monitoring my online activity when you had the nerve to _vanish –_ ”

“You’re still wearing it,” Sombra cut her short. “The ring. You’re still wearing it.”

She held the other’s gaze. “Should I have taken it off?”

Sombra was on top of her a second later, pushing her down the couch, lips against hers. She resisted a little, though it was just for sport.

“What were you doing in Zurich, mmh? Looking for any cute blonde physicians? I had a lot of classmates.”

“Jealousy doesn’t suit you,” Sombra leaned closer, pressing her teeth against Angela’s neck. The blonde rolled slightly to the side, breaking contact.

“I am very possessive,” she dug her fingers on Sombra’s waist. “But very quiet about it. You, on the other hand, seem relatively cool despite claiming otherwise – except for now. Now, you’re riled up.” She yanked the other abruptly, closing the distance between them, and whispered on her ear, “What is it? Is it that Carlos person?”

The hacker growled, which made her burst out laughing.

“You should keep an eye on me,” she teased between kisses. “I’m known for being easy.”

_“Por qué no te callas?”_

“ _Por qué no **me** callas?_ ”

Sombra pulled away and looked her in the eye. “I’ll bring my stuff in tomorrow.”

Angela didn’t resist a smirk. “Good.”

_“Te callaré ahora.”_

_“Bueno,”_ she closed her eyes.

 

* * *

 

 

Angela noticed the ring right away, on the very moment Sombra got back from Mexico. The silver band was gone, swapped by an equally discreet golden one. The two were so similar she could almost believe that the ring had gone through some weird chemical accident, yet she knew better than that.

She didn’t ask, and Sombra offered no explanations – not that she really thought any were needed. But because everything with them had to be painfully roundabout, it took her three more weeks of a lot of thinking to finally get around to mentioning it.

_Ancient Aliens_ was on TV and they were having a good time. It was almost painful for her to bring serious matters into conversation, but she knew she had to take the chance when she saw it, because it would take forever for her to ever gather up the guts for it again.

“Sombra.”

“Mmmmh?”

Angela hesitated. “You’ve got a new ring.”

A moment of tense silence.

“Yeah.”

She let that statement hang in the air, eyes lazily scanning the television screen but not paying much attention to it. Long periods of muteness had always been a part of any dialogue between the two, and so they just watched the program for a little while.

“I like it.”

“I…Thanks.”

Angela took a deep breath, held it, then let it out slowly through her nose. “… Sombra?”

“ _Sí, ángel?_ ”

“Do you think I can have the matching one?”

 

* * *

 

 

**BONUS:**

Amelié: "So you finally got hitched, eh?'

Sombra: "Whadda mean?"

Amelié: "Married, you got married"

Sombra: "What?? No!! We're just... living together and going steady and wearing rings to show it."

Amelié: "So, _married._ "

 

**BONUS 2:**

 

Fareeha: (on her wedding day with Satya)

Fareeha: (looks at Angela)

Fareeha: "Imma get that bitch hitched"

Fareeha: (aims and throws bouquet)

Angela: ( _doooooooodges)_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special thanks to Nox for helping out with tech bullshit, including this CSS. Also, thanks to Carrogath, Oren and Archer for bouncing off ideas!

**Author's Note:**

> welcome to rarepair hell I will be your guide
> 
> special thanks to Oren, Carrogath and BzArcher for bouncing ideas with me, and to Ljósfari and Fisky for helping me out with the spanish!


End file.
